Rebecca Stott writes novelistic history (Darwin and the Barnacle and Darwin’s Ghosts) and historical fiction (Ghostwalk and The Coral Thief) and is a professor of literature and creative writing at UEA. She has just published a family memoir, In the Days of Rain, a book about growing up as a small child in a closed Christian cult called the Exclusive Brethren and leaving it with her family to live in the outside world where she and her father discovered books, film and music for the first time, a book recently described by reviewers as ‘terrifying’, ‘furious and compassionate’, and ‘a case study in people’s desire to be led’.
Emily Willis read English at The University of York, where she co-founded The Narrator. She was published by Café Writers’, winning the Norfolk Prize in 2016’s Competition. Originally from Stockton-on-Tees, her work reflects these post-industrial landscapes and coastlines and she is passionate about changing attitudes to disability through writing. She keeps a literary blog and regularly reads at events.